


There is always a woman, always a cloak and always a man

by chewingonpearls (Reallife)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 13:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8579749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reallife/pseuds/chewingonpearls
Summary: “In string theory, the multiverse is a theory in which our universe is not the only one; many universes exist parallel to each other. These distinct universes within the multiverse theory are called parallel universes. A variety of different theories lend themselves to a multiverse viewpoint.” From String Theory For Dummies





	

  
Notes:

Gift fic for my wonderful Beta [Musichowler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Musichowler/profile) who helps me clean up mountains of text filled with angst and is so very kind. You should read her work!

Reviewed by the also awesome [Leftylain/leftennant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/leftennant/works) who is a fantastically amazing writer who took the time to look this over. Go read their stuff! Right maow!

Also, um. Warnings for sex and very light violence(really, like a garnish of violence). Also, the term Voidwitches is borrowed from Turthwitch, a novel by Susan Dennard. Because I really like the name, but I don't know if her Voidwitches do mind control? Haven't finished the book yet. Either way.

  


(This is the one where they both know, but he won’t give in. Darcy kisses his bruises and battered knuckles, but no amount of therapy and heart to hearts will stop him from seeing blood on her lips as she pulls away. She waits and waits, until the hollow ache in her chest becomes a weight pulling her down)

_I don’t dance anymore, Doll._

That’s what he said, and she was sure he meant it most sincerely, as he had promised her several years ago never to lie to her though he would not always be able to tell her everything. It was, however, an unintentional lie. He still danced with her, danced around her, for anyone who took half a minute to watch to behold.

Bucky Barnes danced around Darcy Lewis and whatever was between them like he was born to it. Danced around the goosebumps that raised on her skin from their lingering, deceptively casual touches, danced around the tension in the air when they were doing something so innocent as him running his fingers through her hair as they watched a movie.

Oh, but the former Winter Soldier _didn’t dance anymore_ , don’t be ridiculous. At least not in smoky clubs with the sounds of trumpets in the air, those days were long past.

The other dancing he _did_ do though, was starting to skirt the line of amusing for for their friends to frustrating as time went on. Worse yet(though they weren’t aware of this), it wasn’t just this Darcy and Bucky in this position.

“Alright Barnsey, it’s still not too late, you can still go with me to Stark’s Halloween party.” Truthfully, she really didn’t expect him to change his mind. It didn’t stop her from hoping though.

She had also thought of getting a different date, it wouldn’t be that difficult, but it wouldn’t be right to do that to someone else because she would keep looking at them and seeing Barnes. So, cue another doomed to fail attempt at convincing Barnes to come with her, “It’s not too late for you to stay in and marathon the _Friday the 13th_ movies with me.”

Darcy gave an unladylike snort, “Nope, we can do that any night,” She slid down next to him on the couch without verbal warning, though he knew her body language so well at this point it couldn’t count as sneaking.

Side pressed up against his she felt his warm through the layers of their clothes and for the briefest of moments found herself counting the layers of clothes between them before dismissing the inclination entirely.

“What if I get lonely?”

(This is one of the few where she is able to meet him before the train, but he’s already left bits and pieces of himself behind, and it only gets worse. He lets her slip through his hands like the soft silk she wears.)

…”Miss Stark I’m sure if you take your fancy coat and stick with your friends you’ll be fine.” Darcy pouted as she watched Sgt. Barnes looking increasingly uncomfortable on her brother’s couch. The man seemed to _want_ to touch her, eyes roaming her form appreciatively when he thought she wasn’t looking (but she was), and hands twitching towards where her thighs pressed up against his own. He just kept stopping himself. (damn him!) It made her wonder if Howie had cornered him and had A Talk.

Then again, this man with his lovely shoulders and heart stopping baby blues didn’t seem like the type to be scared off by Howie’s Protective Big Brother Act. Maybe...No, it couldn’t be, “Don’t you think I’m pretty Sarge?” The question and the voice was too guileless, too naive to be sincere, and both her brother and Steve seemed to notice. They snorted in amusement from their positions around what she had dubbed ‘The War Table’, if there was a single trait that Howard and Darcy Stark shared it was their complete confidence in their own looks and charm.

However, her target seemed to believe her, face reddened with an adorable flush before he took in the sight of her again. As was proper for her name she was dressed to the nines, freshly rolled curls and Apple Red lipstick, an intricate maroon dress held together by ribbons and lace that was revealing enough to raise eyebrows but still be _just_ this side of proper.

She was a Stark, after all.

“Of course not Miss Stark, any man would be lucky to be seen on your arm.” He didn’t give her time to respond before he stood, looking supremely uncomfortable and excusing himself to a location muttered under his breath.

“But I want _you_ on my arm!” She snapped at his retreating back, another pout pulling at her lips as she settled back into the couch again, arms crossed over her chest petulantly. 

“Miss Stark I think your attentions might be a bit overwhelming for a man just recaptured from the enemy and having spent months in the trenches.” Rogers probably had a point, but it didn’t stop the oncoming sulk at not getting what she wanted, most men would be flattered to have her after them.

Except this one apparently, who both wanted her and..and what? The longer she replayed their interactions in her head the more she thought maybe she glimpsed guilt in his eyes, but for what? What kind of guilt would make him hesitate to escort a pretty girl out to a Costumed Gala?

Oh well, maybe she would try again another night, depending on how long the boys stayed. She stood, hands smoothing out her skirts, “I suppose even I lose on occasion. No matter,” A quick glance at the clock as she checked her clutch one more time, “I should be heading out, the driver will be coming around any minute boys, don’t stay up too late.”

Howard gave her a worried look as she pulled on her long red coat, “Maybe you girls shouldn’t go out unescorted, not all men are as gentlemanly as us, you know.”

Rogers cast Howie a skeptical look at his statement but nodded in agreement, “Some men can behave like animals when alcohol is involved especially--” _Looking like you do_ goes unspoken, and Rogers is too much of a gentleman to say it, more so with her brother right there. 

Darcy knew though, she wasn’t naive, and she flashed them an almost feral grin, “Animals eh? Good, maybe I’ll find me a wolf.”

(This one is not so different, there’s magic, swords, titles like Lady and Lord but still a man who has put a kind hearted blue eyed woman up on a pedestal for him to stare at but never touch. He dances around her reaching hands making excuses about why he can’t return her touch)

...It’s her favorite cloak, woven with salamander scales that hides her scent, warm in the winter and somehow inexplicably soft, it has protected her from both the sun and the rain. It’s a deep red, like dried blood even though she knows for a fact it’s been charmed to repel blood, and also knows that it is an effective charm even to this day.

Still, right now she’s a little annoyed with it, she had to hold it back from her hips to further pull back more layers of gauze and velvet skirts in order to tuck her treasured hunting knife into her scabbard. The man beside her looks away from the skin that she unintentionally reveals, although he lets his eyes linger for longer than is strictly proper. His head was still angled so he could watch her movements out of his peripheral vision, something that makes her grin knowingly.

Darcy watches him with sharp eyes, pulling her cloak back further and pulling her hair out from under it to reveal the pale expanse of her neck. 

Again, his eyes lingered. This time with such intensity that she thought _maybe_ today would be the day, finally. Darcy hadn’t met him before he started to work for her father, but she had heard stories of him, he had been quite the charmer, he could dance, since, and fight with all manner of weapons with a grin.

That man had been buried a long time ago though, somewhere between the Great War and being captured by Voidwitches, who brainwashed him and used him for their own ends until he had been burned away into so much dust.

“Lady Coulson, you shouldn’t tempt fate. The skinwalkers would tear you apart in the guise of wolves from the mountains.” He cleared his throat, retreating back into the stoned face soldier like he always did when she pushed.

He had given her dozens of excuses since her father offered him amnesty and a home in return for his service.

_You deserve better than me._

As if that was his decision to make!

_I’m not a good man anymore my Lady_

He was obviously a poor judge of character, she was better. James Barnes had been a good man since he could walk, and he would die as such, even with the shadows that still tainted his mind that were born of ill gotten magic forced upon him.

_I could hurt you_

How absurd and insulting. Darcy’s father, the Lord Phillip Coulson of the Northern Isles had trained his daughter in every weapon he himself was familiar with. Darcy, with her plump lips and dry sense of humor, kept a sword on each side of her bed and a dagger hidden in each pillowcase. Her sister Natasha had taught her that one. They had also discovered her aptitude for elemental magic early and she had studied it diligently for as long as she could remember. 

The Lady Darcy Coulson of The North Isles was not afraid of James Barnes of the Southern Wastes, in fact she was beginning to think it was he who was afraid.

Her skirts fell back down to their place and she reached up to him, running one calloused fingertip down his jawline, “Are you saying I am tempting Barnes?”

(This one is the simplest, or maybe just the least tainted. They are young and whole, college students with goals, ambitions and easy laughter. If their counterparts could see them--if they had the option--they would chose this life, even at the risk of choosing the easy path. They don’t know how lucky they are)

“…Damnit Darce, you know you are,” His teeth scraped along her collarbone as she arched up against him, spine bowing against the flimsy door he had pressed her against.

His wolf costume is already half off, hanging from his torso like a shapeshifter in transition and when he was growling in her ear in a way he knew made her melt the look seemed oddly fitting. She didn’t need to see him to work her fingers underneath his top, digging her nails into his hipbones, “Are we going to do this after every show? Eventually,” Bucky suddenly sucked viciously at her pulsepoint, and her words trailed off into a moan.

“If you keep going on stage wearing no panties we are.” It took the musical _Into The Woods_ to bring them together, sexually at least, because they had been friends since they met as high school seniors touring universities. Although if you were to ask Bucky he would say _she_ should have played the wolf, dancing around him and tempting him to do things he knew he shouldn’t.

They should talk about this, really. Like adults. Or something, but they hadn’t, it didn’t stop him from leaving marks on her necks with his mouth

_Mine. Mine. Mine._

Except she’s not. Officially. Maybe. Hard to know.

No one would believe him if he told them, but this was his favorite part; when he pulled back from her, and watched her face after he hitched up her skirts and pushed inside of her. Darcy never made noise in that moment, her eyes would fly open and her mouth would part like she was surprised every time. Even when she was on top her muscles would clench tight around him, it was stupid and cheesy but it felt like every bit of her was holding onto him and he fucking _needed_ that. 

He spent too much time watching her, and Darcy took charge like she always did when she found something she wanted. Her hands smoothed up his chest to grip his shoulders, and leveraged her legs that were still wrapped around him to bounce on him in a way that made him see stars.

That was probably his favorite thing about her, Darcy Lewis was unashamed about her goals and wants. She took, she grabbed, played dirty, whatever it took, and it had never bothered her. She had cheeseburgers instead of salads, asked people out on dates instead of waiting for them, and demanded orgasms which he was happy to give.

“Fuck Darce,” 

“I’m trying, are you with me Barnes?”

(This is the one where he almost loses her. This is the part where he can feel her start to slip away, this beautiful Agent who makes playlists for everyone, bakes the best cookies, speaks four languages and has weapons concealment contests with The Black Widow. Who wants nothing more than to curl up in a hammock in the sun with him and waste the day away. This is the one where he decides he’s earned a Happy Ending, or at least the chance at one.)

\--”Barnes? Barnes are you with me?” Chaos around them, because of course Stark’s Halloween part had been attacked, and of course he hadn’t been there to protect her. Because even when he played the martyr and stayed home she still got hurt and it was still his fault.

Except. 

Except she wasn’t hurt, the blood wasn’t hers, and he came back from whatever dark place he had crawled into in his mind as his hands finished patting her down, needing assurance she was still _whole_.

Darcy holstered her gun that she had used to dispatch her would be assailants and before he can stop her her hands have framed her face, forcing him to look at her face, “Bucky. I’m fine.” A tension so thick it could be cut with a knife stretches between them, and he felt like he should say something--but he wasn’t sure what, he never was. 

Then it snaps like a wire, and she just sighed like she so often did at him, let him go with a resigned look to head towards the exit red costume cloak with drying blood billowing out behind her from the broken windows, “You know Sarge, I think it’s high time you stopped worrying so much about what the wolves of the world are going to do to me, and start worrying about what I’m going to do to them.”

Darcy is talking about him, he knows this, it’s the same talk they’ve had dozens of times. It’s only now, that she’s just dispatched five men with no help, in a corset, stilettos and a come-get-me-grin, that it really soaks in. 

The thoughts flit through his mind as he watches her leave.

_I’m dangerous_

_So is she_

_She’s been waiting, but she won’t always. She deserves better._

Except she doesn’t want better than Bucky, she wanted Bucky--has wanted Bucky, for a long time. It was high time he stopped letting his (obviously) ill founded fears and insecurities get the best of him. An odd sort of giddiness shot through him as his mind embraced this new goal, a familiar smirk pulling at his lips before he follows after her towards the balcony she had retreated to in her frustration.

Sometimes he forgot how well she knew him, then there were moments like this where she wouldn’t let him forget it; him grabbing at her shoulder to turn her around, and her face clearly ready for a fight about protecting her until she saw his face.

Darcy _knew_ , between one heartbeat and the next, and yanked him forward by his shoulders with a ravenous hunger in her eyes and greed propelling her hands as she tried to feel all of him at once. Everything she had never been able to touch and had stared at on movie nights and during mission briefings, from the firmness of his arms to the dips and curves of his ribcage.

Her hands snuck under his shirt, nails leaving angry red marks as they traced down his spine to dig into his hips--marking him. That was alright though, because he was her’s. If he was being honest he had been her’s since she first used their shared insomnia to force him to watch all of the Monty Python movies, citing them as ‘iconic cultural films’.

It’s fast and rough, spurred by years of repression and temptation, but it’s perfect. Darcy doesn’t always need to be handled like something precious(even though she is to him), and breakable(she could break him, if she wanted to, but she won’t.). The kiss is an anomaly, slow and sweet like a first kiss should be, while Darcy is unbuckling his pants he’s trying to memorize everything about her. While his lips are dried and chapped her’s are soft and taste like coconut, and there is a spot on her lower lip that when he grazes it with his tongue her hands pause and she shivers, breath stuttering and he wants to do it _again_ and _again_ and savor every twitch and every gasp.

But she stopped him, caught his lip with her teeth for a bit of pain that made his already interested dick start to press uncomfortably against the seam of his pants that drop just as she let him go, apologizing by sucking his tongue into her mouth. 

It’s his turn to shake, fingers weaving through her hair, nails burrowing into her scalp while his metal arm works to pull down both her stockings and panties, steadfastly ignoring the ripping sounds from between their bodies.

“Darce I don’t have a--”

“I don’t give two shits, in me, now.” It’s a command, snarled into his collarbone because she’s blazing a train of bites and licks to his pulsepoint, one of her hands reached down to unnecessarily wrap around him. Unnecessary because he wants her so much he’s dizzy with it, and needs no help getting ready, but he groans at the touch of her hands--calloused like his, sure and determined grip that makes his eyes squeeze shut.

So he gave in, because it really doesn’t take much convincing and---

_God_

She was perfect. They had hardly touched, both still mostly clothed but she was soaking for him hot, tight and incredible for him. 

The red lacy corset she wore jutted into his vision as her back arched, a low keening sound tearing from her throat that he could _live_ off of for the rest of his days, “This is better than I dreamed,”

He twitched almost painfully inside her at that, one hand still holding her hips in a bruising grip, “Fuck Darce, you can’t say that.” The fingers still twined in her hair pull her head back insistently so his mouth could latch onto the pale column of her neck, leaving one mark and then another savouring the taste of her. Every time she shivered, twitched, tensed and let out little whimpers he went back to the spot, nibbling with his teeth and laving with his tongue until she was clawing desperately at his back, legs twitching around his hips. One of her hands has snaked between them, to touch herself almost frantically, and her fingers grazed him as he slid in and out of her a fleeting sensation that nonetheless made him see stars.

He tried to focus on that instead of what she said, but that only made him worse, brought him closer to the edge he was grasping at that was coming too quickly. Focus on the sounds of his his hips slamming into her’s instead of thoughts of her dreaming of him inside of her at night. Focus on the feel of her muscles, clenching around him instead of looking down at her touching herself, wondering how many times she had done it picturing his hands and mouth.

Bucky was torn, because he wanted to make her feel as much pleasure as she was giving him, wanted to touch her there and make her scream and lose control.

Except his eyes keep darting from watching her fingers bring herself closer and watching her face, because he had dreams about this too--about Darcy’s curls in disarray, face contorted in pleasure, biting her lips, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, chest heaving from exertion.

All caused by him, the flush in her cheeks and the quaking of her knees.

The smirk on her face as her muscles suddenly clamp around him, squeezing him and pulling him even deeper into her tells him she knew _exactly_ what she was doing, and it’s the smirk and spark in her eyes as much as the the tightness that pushes him over the edge.

He hates it, a little, when he slammed into her one last time, moaning into her mouth after reclaiming her lips, body freezing up as sensation so bright and sharp overtakes him it almost hurts.

Bucky’s body shook as he came down from his high, but he wasn’t done because she wasn’t yet, and he didn’t hesitate this time to reach between them--

Except she batted his hand away, “Not this time, I want you to watch.” The confidence and bold words are undermined by how out of breath and strained she is, and he wanted to be cocky, to live up to some unimportant reputation of how he used to be, to take care of her and leave her quivering by his touch.

It’s Darcy though, he’s powerless to move at the sight of her, cocky words and intentions dying before he can act on them. Half lidded eyes stay locked with his while his hand glides from her hair, ghosting down her sides, making her shiver before stopping at her hips, both thumbs digging into her hips on a hunch until--

She falls apart in front of him, name falling from his lips in a cry that would echo around his head for days and nights on end, tensing and twitching in his hands back bowing at a painful angle.

Fuck. Darcy was gorgeous.

Instead of pushing him away, gathering their clothes, or suddenly realizing how very public their chosen setting was she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled her into him.

This? With her head burrowed in the crook of his neck and the smell of her shampoo around his face, was contentment. It didn’t matter that he was a wolf anymore, with blood on his hands and anger in his eyes.

Because Darcy wasn’t a little girl lost in the woods.

She was a wolf too.

  



End file.
